Imbalances In Final Fantasy XV Story Were Intentional, Says Game Director

Final Fantasy XV launched with great critical and financial success. However, many were disappointed with certain story elements that did not happen on screen. Now the game director has clarified that the narrative direction was entirely intentional.

Speaking with GameInformer(via NovaCrystallis), game director Hajime Tabata said that some important story elements did not played on screen because the devs wanted the players to experience the story through Noctis’ eyes.

It was for the players to experience the story through Noctis’ eye. The world and the events that Noctis sees are merely things that are seen through his eyes. We didn’t want to create a comprehensive and perfectly balanced story in this game. Instead, we placed importance on the main characters and for the player and Noctis to share the same experience when we tell the story.

He added that such narrative direction was not adopted to reduce the role of side characters in the game, but it was important because giving more focus to other characters means less time for main characters on screen.

It’s not that we decreased the role of the side characters,” he explained. “Focusing on many characters in the game means that the allocation given to the main characters will decrease. Instead of creating a comprehensive and perfectly balanced story, we placed greater importance on the four main characters and strived to depict a world seen from their perspective.

Also, Square Enix recently teased the avatar system for Final Fantasy XV. The system seems to be in early development and lacks a lot of features as there are only sliders to adjust the Height, Face Size and Muscle Definition.

Final Fantasy XV is an open-world action adventure game developed by Square Enix for PS4 and Xbox One.